Startup Next Hong Kong is proud to present you the 8 teams that were selected for our second cohort!

When we brought UP Global’s programs (now Techstars Startup Programs) to Hong Kong in November 2011, little did we know how big our community would be 4 years later. Excitingly, we went from half a dozen of organisers to over 50; 70 alumni to 1,500+ and 1 edition to 16! An additional achievement is bringing Startup Next to Hong Kong for a cohort in fall 2015.

Startup Next, a Techstars program, is the #1 startup pre-acceleration program in the world

It prepares startups for accelerators and seed investment, by providing high quality mentorship and leveraging a global network of investors, mentors and founders.

The program is designed in such a way that founders are able to continue building their product, since it’s part time and consists of 3-hour weekly sessions for 6 weeks. The program is free of charge and no equity is taken.

Even though Startup Next is part of Techstars, it’s not exclusively preparing startups for Techstars accelerator programs. Over time we have built a strong network of accelerators and investors worldwide and work closely with them to refer our accelerator/investor-ready alumni.

We are back for Spring 2016 and things look great already!

With the help of W Hub, we selected 8 teams out of 81 applications and met them for the first time on April 5th. The entrepreneurs will be under a lot of pressure to grow their business and make sure they are ready to pitch at our Demo Day late May.

This post has been written by Thomas Merritt – Find the article on Medium

Last year, Hirely was selected to join the first batch in Hong Kong of Startup Next, a Techstars program. Startup Next is the #1 startup pre-acceleration program in the world and was designed in a way that founders are able to continue building their product. The first edition was co-directed with Nest and Startup Weekend HK.

The timing was perfect for our startup as we were in the final stages of product development, gained steady traction with beta users and demonstrated proof of concept in a controlled group.

Joining the accelerator program helped us focus on our business goals, set objective KPIs and measure our progress from week to week. During the 6 weeks, we perfected our pitch, sharpened our business model and gained an invaluable business network.

Here are the top five takeaways from Startup Next:

Test, test, test again.

We were reminded early that no simulation compares with getting live feedback early from the target market. We met and interviewed over 135 party vendors and entertainers in Hong Kong to test our product along every stage — from an idea on a napkin to a prototype to final launch product. Without testing with our potential customers, Hirely would not be as useful to them as it is today. Meet your market, understand their pain points, internalize feedback and tweak your solution. And repeat.

2. KPIs & accountability are king.

You can’t underestimate the importance of measuring quantitative progress. We were required to develop a set of KPIs to be accountable for every week. This enabled us to measure your progress step by step as well as keeping close count of what works and what doesn’t. Setting yourself growth targets is key but identifying the right parameters is just as important and they vary from one startup to the other. To this day (3 months on), we still use similar weekly KPI metrics that we developed from the Startup Next program.

3. Jump back into the arena.

It’s better to draw a blank during a test pitch then on demo day. To prepare for my first solo pitch, I practiced a one-minute pitch for days to perfection. However, under pressure, I lost focus and, in a blink, the pitch was over before I could recover. As embarrassing as it was, it was a useful reminder that things don’t always go to plan. In spite of the bruised ego, I put this behind me and delivered a 3-minute final pitch effortlessly a few weeks later.

Our Startup Next final pitch

4. You get what you put in.

Joining an accelerator (or pre-accelerator) program is a big commitment in both time and work. Do your research, identify in advance what you want to get out of the program and from the mentors. Once you’re in the program, respect your own and others’ time by putting in the effort that’s required to get your startup to the next level. Everyone is there to help you along the way, but if you don’t pull your own weight, all efforts are lost.

5. Invest in your network.

The raw energy from being in a room with like-minded individuals with a common hunger was addictive. It was inspiring to see so many people volunteering their time to offer mentorship and support the start-up community. Through the network of Startup Next, we sponsored our first event and met business partners. Two mentors from Startup Next remain to be our advisors today.

Startup Next crew partying with Hirely

Startup Next is back in Hong Kong for round two this spring with a kick-ass list of mentors. This time, it will be co-directed by W Hub. I encourage early-stage startups looking to join world-class accelerator programs or kickstart fundraising efforts to apply. Applications are due on March 22nd and you can submit yours here. Feel free to reach out to me at thomas[at]hirely.asia or hk[at]startupnext.co with other questions.

Tom is the cofounder of Hirely, an online marketplace that simplifies the way people find, compare and hire curated event professionals that make their events truly unique. Hirely recently launched in HK.

Startup Next, a pre-acceleration program run by Techstars, is kicking off in Hong Kong with the help of Nest VC. The free program provides local entrepreneurs the opportunity to work with great mentors and coaches to get their business to the next level.

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We have been organising Startup Weekend in Hong Kong since 2011 and through the 12 editions, we were able to positively impact over 1,000 participants. We are humbled by the passion people show during the intense 54 hours program. Complete strangers come together to create their very own tech startups and with hard work, make it a sustainable and fast growing company. We start to see the important impact of our events on the Hong Kong Startup Ecosystem and that encourages us to move forward.

Based on general feedback from Startup Weekend, we discovered that we could and needed to go one step further to help entrepreneurs in the following areas:

A deeper dive in the customer discovery and development processes;

More hands-on mentorship from experienced entrepreneurs;

Clear focus on preparing projects to successfully apply and get accepted into world-class accelerators and raise seed funding.

To help startups with these challenges, we have brought Startup Next to Hong Kong for the first time! As an example of its quality in different cities around the globe, the program has assisted over 20 startups to get into top accelerators, including Techstars and 500 Startups, while 11 more startups have collectively raised $11.1M for their seed rounds in 2014.

How does Startup Next work?

Startup Next is a six weeks, mentor driven pre-acceleration program that brings established teams together for three hour sessions on one evening each week.

The three key components of the program are:

Working 1:1 with top local mentors to address the main challenges each startup is facing, in order to help get the team focused on growth.

Learning from successful entrepreneurs about their experience on various topics like Product / Market fit or funding, which are crucial for founders to understand.

Getting feedback from a group of mentors on the strategy, execution and startup pitch.

Startup Next Hong Kong is run in a collaboration with Nest VC and a number of community partners, venues and the most amazing people helping startups and entrepreneurs to reach the next level. We’re proud to team up with some of the greatest co-working spaces in Hong Kong to host our teams for each session. Startup Next participants will discover KPMG, Blueprint, Brinc.io, Paperclip, the Infiniti Lab and the DBS Vault.

We are excited to announce the 7 teams that will take part of Startup Next Hong Kong this Fall 2015:

The program starts this Saturday and we will share teams’ updates on a regular basis. It is organised and facilitated by Jessica Cheung (Nest.vc), Mark Koester (Techstars), Tony Verb (Nest.vc) and Matthieu Bodin.

Interested in helping these teams, sponsoring or investing? Contact us at hk@startupnext.co for an introduction.

Spoiler alert! You might want to read our Day 1 blog before proceeding.

Natalie: Can I just start by saying how proud I feel for everyone involved? I was at the first Startup Weekend HKU, and I must say the quality of presentations and prototypes this time were at a whole other level. Perhaps the massive venue they booked and the cocktail bar they had this past weekend contributed to that.

Nayantara: HKU’s second Startup Weekend was definitely on a bigger scale than last time, with much more diverse and ambitious creations. I wasn’t around for most of the creation process, but it definitely looked like an exhausting weekend for some of the participants. Now that the 54 hours have come to a close, they’ll finally be able to get some sleep – and some of them have gone home victorious.

Natalie: All of them have gone home victorious with the new insights and new connections they have made. We live-tweeted all the 13 final pitches on Twitter, and if you haven’t heard already, here are the results:

Nayantara: I’m happy to say that the products I was most fond of made it into the top four, although one of my personal favourites, HappyCorner, didn’t. Their idea of creating an Airbnb-like platform for rooftop events and parties was something I really liked, but it might have been a little too niche market for the judges’ tastes.

I’M IN was something we were quite happy about, and they won the Crowd Favourite award by a landslide. Think Facebook events but tailored to your preferences, with a special little calendar showing all the events near you. Definitely something that could be used to create a good few crazy house parties (see Project X!) Their concept, bolstered by a snappy presentation and a well-designed prototype, definitely had the votes of most of the audience.

Natalie: I thought HappyCorner was a breath of fresh air among the fitness and social apps we have today. Rooftops are quite an integral part of urban culture in Hong Kong, yet their scalable business model allows for renting out under-utilised private spaces across the globe.

Let’s talk about our grand prize winner. The team of three at ShopIG offered a rather all-round solution to leverage the e-commerce potential of Instagram. Instagram shops are really popular among locals, but the app limits its own ecommerce capabilities because it doesn’t allow hyperlinks in posts–so no link to purchase or to more product information, unless it’s a sponsored post or the “link in the bio”. But the team took it to the next level by feeding Instagram content onto their own e-commerce platform, which makes much more sense with a Buy button and a shopping cart.

My concern, though, is that ShopIG is built on the assumption that Instagram would allow their own content and user database to be fed into a third-party platform for commercial purposes. Remember when Twitter cut Meerkat off its social graph? Ouch.

I do look forward to what these guys would create in the future. Nelson, one of the technical co-founders, told me he sees himself working with his business co-founder Louis, whom he had just met this weekend, in the long run. Looks to me the team has great chemistry for the #startuplife — and for that I am glad events like Startup Weekend exist.

Nayantara: I thought ShopIG was definitely one of the better ideas, and I wish I’d paid more attention to it during the initial pitches. The same goes for Botomatic, a multi-tasking app that allows you to do several things simultaneously by using a custom-developed ‘bot’. For example, a bot might allow me to tweet, send an email, post to Facebook and check Pinterest all at the same time. The group’s revenue plan was to charge a certain price for the API keys, so any programmers who may want to develop a bot would have to pay for the privilege. It’s also worth mentioning that the group’s prototype app was really aesthetically appealing.

Meanwhile, there were a lot of apps that some members of the audience felt were quite superfluous. Prof. Mandarin (learning purpose-specific Mandarin with the help of a specially selected online tutor) and CollegePars (aggregating job/internship opportunities and student-led initiatives specific to each university) were two of these apps, with some audience members claiming that TutorMing.com and Jobsdb.com respectively are more or less substitutes. However, the CollegePars team impressed me during their pitch, and they definitely seem to have impressed the judges enough to get through to third place despite the audience skepticism.

Natalie: I like the fact that CollegePars included job listings for student-led initiatives alongside jobs on the market. Student groups like TecHKU mostly rely on Facebook, physical posters, and mass emails for recruitment (from my personal experience, those are methods with pretty low ROI). Our message could have better reach on a college-oriented careers platform like CollegePars; Facebook’s news feed algorithm can leave Page owners disappointed at times.

(And yes, TecHKU IS indeed recruiting. Shoot us an email if you are interested to join us as an editorial contributor / video producer / branding strategist, covering the burgeoning tech & startup scene in HKU and beyond! :D)

Nayantara: Can’t have a tech event without at least one vaguely sexist app, so I had my dose of that with Fitland, an app for women’s health that combines fitness with a game by a team called Hello Fitty. Cute idea. Very cute, had the team not opened their pitch with “Women complain a lot about their appearances, but never really do much to fix it.” In my humble opinion, if you need to make a joke about women to sell your app, it’s probably not a great app.

Natalie: If I may interrupt — Regardless of what you say about the nature of their app, Fitland had hands down the best original graphic designs out of all the prototypes. Props to their designers.

Nayantara: Then that’s great for them I suppose…

There was also a product called Micro Probe, which we were very skeptical about during pitching, as you can see in our Day 1 blog. The final pitch did not make me any less skeptical, to be honest. It’s a great idea in theory but developing something like that would take a seriously intense research budget and a lot of time. I really do admire your ambition though, guys, although I was a little confused about whether you were selling the Micro Probe or an insurance plan.

Natalie: Let’s talk about Tour4U. I am surprised they pursued the original idea from the first pitch on Friday. This travel app is definitely one that’s on the creative end. People who cannot travel, perhaps due to their disability or financial ability, could log onto their platform and join tours by local tour guides in the format of “follow-me-around” live video. A lot of attendees I talked to agree that it is a unique way to experience the world without setting foot outdoors as you get to interact with your tour guide, but I can foresee several problems when it comes to implementation. First, since the quality of these tours depend highly on live stream quality, it would not be feasible for users to have guides visit remote terrains like Mount Everest for them, however exciting that might sound. Perhaps better QC has to be done to ensure that guides have stable Internet connectivity when conducting tours. This leads me to the second point: Can the monetary return from the app cover the guides’ costs of having a good cellular data plan?

I do appreciate the team for letting their imagination run wild– they hope to integrate their service with the 360° camera and VR headsets.

That sums up the final pitches at SWHKU #2. We believe we will be around to witness a third SWHKU in the future, hopefully with even more participants and exciting product developments. (Organisers said it might be held at a joint-university level.) We wish all newly-admitted Startup Weekend alumni the best of luck in their future endeavours!

Be sure to keep an eye on our Facebook page as we will be posting video recaps of the event (with exclusive interviews) over the next few weeks!

We are at the second Startup Weekend HKU, a three-day event for participants to meet like-minded peers to take their startup ideas to the next level. They will be pitching, validating, and prototyping their ideas all within 54 hours. The organisers just wrapped up the initial round of pitches– here are our thoughts and insights.

Natalie: What did you think of the ideas pitched? I can definitely sense a recurring theme here – matching apps, i.e. Uber for X apps. Amongst others, there was an app matching fashionistas with those who may not have the sharpest fashion sense when choosing outfits, a platform to find an owner for your old furniture, and an app to find someone with free time to clean your house.

Nayantara: Yeah, and there were also some ideas that were similar enough to be streamlined. They could integrate their ideas and business models and make something really great. The “Surprise” app combined with the “Plannable” app for example – a surprise event planning platform mixed with a way for busy parents to plan their children’s birthday parties more easily. I actually really liked “Surprise” in particular; I thought their idea of “gift-giving consultations” was really cute.

Mass-market oriented things like this are all good, but there were a lot of ideas that seemed super unrealistic though, don’t you think? For example, ProCram, or as the would-be creator describes it, “Reddit with an academic twist”. In theory, I like the idea. I like it a lot. Who wouldn’t want teachers and TAs on standby to answer questions that the lecture slides and textbook can’t? The issue I find with this though, is that why would professors and TAs even be on standby? They would almost definitely have better things to do.

Natalie: Yes. There was an idea for a biomedical startup to detect and offer treatment for different stages of cancer. Finding a cure for cancer has been a long-time challenge for the medical field – How would the team here be able to prototype this idea in two days? And they hope to offer treatment- that’s what hospitals are for, right?

Another problem I noticed across the pitches was that they were super niche. A rating platform for dog salons only caters to dog owners. Perhaps this team could upscale it by rating vet clinics or grooming centres in general. So OpenRice but for pet care.

I liked the idea of a platform for sharing mistakes. Experience –not Google– is the best teacher. What better way to learn than to learn from others’ mistakes? But I am not sure what their business model is. After all startups got to be sustainable and earn profit. We haven’t heard a lot about monetisation from the participants.

Nayantara: A lot of the pitches seemed very hardware-oriented as well, so I’m interested to see how they’re going to implement them. One of my special favourites was the idea to create a vending machine with ‘fun’ food: pizza for example! “Look and Taste” would let users select their food and watch it being made. This pitch came from the frustration of being on campus until late and having absolutely nothing to eat – a frustration I can definitely understand when writing this on campus at 10:20 pm! I can definitely see a lot of robotics going into the ‘Look’ part of it though, so let’s see if the group refines their plan to just the ‘Taste’.

Smart bands are also featured heavily in this year’s pitches. Eric, the man behind “I-Care”, pitched a medical smart band with basic biometric sensors for blood pressure and heart rate, and also special features like reminders for taking medicine and a way to automatically alert hospitals to any medical emergencies.

I think another thing that really stood out to both of us was one of the last pitches, one that proposed to produce menstrual cups for women in developing countries. Cost-effective to produce, reusable and supposedly with fewer health risks, menstrual cups could really make all the difference to women on their periods. As a supporter of both menstrual cups and the use of the word “vagina” in public, I loved the pitch, but unfortunately I don’t really see how it’s a startup, and I really don’t see how it relates to tech. It’s an R&D-intensive, biology-related project and in this case the R&D has already been done. Which leads me to ask, what exactly is the group planning to do with this idea?

Ideas we liked

Natalie: Ricky’s “Seat Finder” uses the WiFi access points at computers or smartphones in the library or a canteen to generate a virtual map of the space, so that students could easily find vacant seats once they enter the premise. In fact the official HKU app has this feature implemented for the Main Library, the Oval, and the Chi Wah Learning Commons. It would be cool if “Seat Finder” could provide the same solution for virtually any public space– I totally see myself using it.

“I’M IN” would sound exciting for those who want company at an event, like watching a movie or having hotpot. You get to propose, browse, and join events by saying “I’m In” on the platform. I personally don’t mind experiencing things alone, but it would suit those who want to make new friends, especially when you are in a new country or environment, as the creators have mentioned.

There was this feel-good app that gets people to think positive by sending encouraging messages when they check-off items on their to-do list. It may well be just a to-do list app, but it does help restore my faith in humanity, a bit.

Nayantara: “Look and Taste”, once they’ve solidified their concept – I could definitely do with some hot pizza in the middle of my midnight studying. At this point, it’s unclear how they’re going to achieve what they’re envisioning, especially if they’re set on having the vending machine cooked from scratch. There’s this and a hundred other problem points to consider, but hopefully they get it together and we’ll see a prototype on campus soon! I can definitely see myself single-handedly making up half their revenue.

There were a lot of ideas that seemed great in concept but would be tough to implement – for example, there was an idea proposing selling warm, home-cooked meals to people. I can definitely go for a warm, home-cooked meal at any time of day, but not personally knowing the cook would be awkward. Not to mention, the person cooking the meal might not want to let strangers into his or her home in the first place. And there’s just something very secure about knowing (or at least hoping) that a restaurant is only operational if it follows government-mandated health codes. So I’ll put this idea down as a maybe. Again, if they can figure out the kinks in their model, then I’m all in.

Natalie: I’m looking forward to how these ideas would pivot in the coming two days– after all participants had only 60 seconds to pitch their idea. It wouldn’t surprise me if we end up having a whole new set of startup ideas from the teams on Day 3. Follow us on Twitter for live updates at the final presentations. Goodnight!

Fun fact, did you know the first know poet and author was a woman by the name of Enheduanna? She was a high priestess in the City of Ur. Enheduanna helped bring together the Sumerian cities through her religious work by consolidating all the local gods into the worship of one, Inanna, a relentless warrior goddess. One story struck a particular chord in me. Inanna needed to defeat a mountain, so she sought the help of the other bro gods, who naturally refused to help. Irritated by the lack of help Inanna singlehandedly destroyed the mountain and showed up the other gods. The story bears strong resemblance to our modern times.

The “mountain” is reflective of the struggles women face in our society. They have two options, one fight the mountain on their own without support. Or two resign to their systematic fate in the valley below. This culture angers me and it should not be this way. Entrepreneurship can be the warrior princess weapon to fight the “mountain.” However, in order to instill change we need to instill empowerment and alter our attitude towards women as soon as they are able to walk.

Take a stroll in a park and you’ll see how the system affects young girls on a daily basis. When a girl goes and picks up a football or a toy truck their parents immediately chastise them and say, “No, that is only for boys.” Or my all time favorite, “that is not very lady-like” when a girl states her opinion. No wonder we don’t see more powerful female giants across the world. What individual can grow up to be a leader when divisions are drawn and voices are silenced? We are to blame for the lack of leaders by raising a generation of women who are subservient to the system.

Therefore, creating a space by women for women is of radical importance to breaking the patriarchal system that binds them from their true potential. Creating events such Startup Weekend Women and even Startup Weekend Girls is a pivotal step in the right direction! The change needs to come from within, those who privilege from the culture are blinded to the oppression it creates. Only women understand and can decide what is best for their needs and how they can achieve triumph. Let women personify the goddess Inanna and follow in her footsteps, destroying the mountains that hamper progress. For when women finally achieve equality, balance will be restored to the world.

Hello, I’m Liang Xingsheng. I’m a software engineer, so-called code guy. I participated in the first startup weekend in Chengdu. I want to introduce myself, and what happened after Startup Weekend Chengdu.

This is our Startup Weekend team. A very big team, about 10 people, two of which are are programmers. Our team name was TuJiaoJiao. We had a very simple product: a way to put photos together to teach you a new skill.

While we won the event, almost like a sign leaving the event, we got into a car accident that night. Luckily, nobody was hurt.

Tianfu ThinkZone gave us some office space – an office for a whole year. Four of us wanted to continue, 3 of us were doing part-time jobs. Another team member had a full time job.

I kept thinking about that car accident, like it was a sign for how our new startup project would be going.

We then decided that we couldn’t continue with this project. First of all, all of us couldn’t put enough time into it, and our target customers weren’t clear. We felt that the project failed.

I participated in the second startup weekend in Chengdu. And at SWCD #2 I met this girl called Dengshun. It’s from her that I learned about Draper University.

Draper university is a 7-week Startup Training Program. It was founded by Tim Draper, a well-known Silicon Valley investor. He invested in Skype, Hotmail, Baidu and Tesla and other well-known companies.

It was from here that I quit my job at Maipu and took a plane to San Francisco.

This is Draper University. It’s not a traditional university. So there aren’t a lot of people. This time there were 30 students. Next time probably around 80 students.

The most amazing thing is Tim Draper invites a lot of renowned guys from Silicon Valley that come and talk with us.

Bill & Tim Draper are pioneers of venture capital. In other words, they invented “VC,” the very concept of venture capital. Teachers taught us that every Monday you wake up if you think “what the hell another monday!”, then don’t waste your time. Do what you love since life is short.

If I hadn’t attended Startup Weekend, there is a good chance I never would have known about Draper University. Everyone said they had attended Startup Weekend at this place or another and what their projects had been. It’s easy to connect with new people about Startup Weekend.

I feel for a guy like me who once had only a work life in Chengdu, Startup Weekend helped me open up and introduced me to the whole reality of the IT Industry. In the end, I recorded a video with my classmates.

To all my peers at Chengdu Startup Weekend, I wish you success. Thanks everyone.

For a dubious looking group of people, it’s a not-so-typical Friday night gathered at Cocoon’s co-working space in Tin Hau. They have chosen to sacrifice their entire weekend of freedom for 52-hours of planning, plugging and pitching. It’s Startup Weekend’s first education edition!

Already not fitting in…
I arrived straight after work and was warmly greeted by co-organizer Kitty Ng (BSD Academy). After being handed an orange nametag signifying my skills and experience in education, I swiftly immerged myself into the crowd… I clocked a few fellow oranges, said hi to some greens (service-providers) and found myself gravitating toward the food table. Munching and mingling there with me were reds and blues (businesspeople and techies, respectively).

The small talk had already begun but along came Marcel Ekkel, co-organizer of the event, to make sure the ice was truly broken. Bingo! Each box on our piece of paper contained a certain skill. The goal was to find as many different people in the room with the desired skills and fill our page with their names.

“Know how to use a business model canvas?” asked a green. “Ever organized a Facebook campaign?” asked an orange. “Know about wireframes?” asked a red.

Questions were flying in all directions and my answer remained the same: “No!”

At this point the voices of self-doubt that visit us all from time to time piped up (yes, already!). Nevertheless, I hung in there… I was sure that I also had skills to bring to the table. So I laughed off the fact I couldn’t be put in a box and got busy scoping the skills in the room.

Pitch O’clock
One fast and fun pitch warm-up later and playtime was over. The microphone beckoned any daring individual with an idea in education to win their peers over in a quick fire 60-second pitch. All you had to do was state the gap in the market, your brilliant idea and who you needed to make it happen- web developers, curriculum writers, game developers and so on… Simple!

I fell flat on my face.

Why am I here?
To be honest, I didn’t have any one, fully formed idea ready for pitching when I signed up for this. Ed-tech was also unfamiliar territory, but I wanted to go anyway; talent, creativity and can-do attitudes all in one space? Experts and mentors at hand? Sold! I resolved to maximize every opportunity presented to me.

As per my personal promise, I jumped in the deep end and gave pitching a shot. Just putting myself out there and doing it was a massive learning curve. Ok, I didn’t do as bad as I made out- it turns out I have very high expectations of myself! So I added that to the list of things to remember next time, along with all the mental notes I took whilst watching the other pitches.

Pick me! Pick me!
After casting votes for the ideas we liked best, a third of the ideas remained. For this special 10, the challenge of recruiting the people and skills necessary to make ideas a reality began. My off-the-cuff idea didn’t make the cut, and although teams began forming around me, I didn’t feel myself gravitating to any which one. I rooted for many other groups, but either felt my skills didn’t match their needs, or the group was already too large for me to make a worthwhile contribution.

That’s when I saw three others floating in limbo, having the same dilemma as me. I liked these guys. They were switched on, had great visions in their pitches and we all hit it off too. Sparks flying, we truly got into the entrepreneurial spirit and forged our own path… we made our own team. Badass.

We got busy blending the best of our ideas, stopping just in time to grab the last MTR home…

A new day, a new problem
Saturday presented new challenges. Other than myself, there were three guys in the team… Leo the startup entrepreneur, Ben the finance guy, and Marc the academic researcher-turned-math teacher. We sure hit it off Friday, but for an Ed-Tech event we were no “dream team” skills-wise. We really could have used someone with tech skills to develop a prototype and address some of our app development concerns. Being such a small team, it also had to be all-hands-on- deck from here on in.

To make sure that happened, the team appointed me their project manager for the weekend. Far from being the know-it-all of the group, I took note of their strengths and assigned tasks accordingly. Everybody was important and we spent rest of the day researching, number crunching, tech talking and even laughing…. With all the hard work ahead of us, I was glad to have such a good- humored team to get through it with!

Meeting the mentors
The event organizers were always on hand to help out… Chris Geary (BSD Academy Founder) stopped by with reminders of the judging criteria and Marcel regularly tipped us off on what we should have completed already.

They’d also arranged for experienced professionals to visit us and share their pearls of wisdom. Mark Koester (UP Global) listened to our proposition and left us with some tips about the current market and potential competitors. That really helped us to determine our edge.

We were especially grateful to mentor Jah Ying Chung (founder and air marshal of LaunchPilots) who walked us through the business model canvas template still staring blankly at us. Marc’s on-point responses later in the Q&A session were also largely based on her sound advice. (Thanks, Jah Ying!)

By the end of the day, we were pretty worn out and one man down (fever… far too much excitement!). Despite this, we went our separate ways that night with that quietly confident feeling that we were onto a good thing.

Sunday aka THE day
After a few hours sleep, we arrived charged and ready for the sprint to the finish line…the final presentation scheduled for 5:00pm that day

T minus 8 hours
With work pending and deadline looming, there wasn’t much time for chitchat. Ben worked on product validation whilst Marc finalized some market research. A whizz with PowerPoint, Leo had been drafting our presentation materials. It was a good time to check in on his progress and identify any gaps in the presentation whilst we still had a few hours to fill them.

I worked with Leo to ensure the presentation unfolded in a logical manner, erasing any ‘not-essential-right-now’ information that would just clutter the slides and detract from the main point. Consistent formatting and relevant content to headlines are paramount too — why jeopardize our chances with clashing colours, misused semi-colons or comic sans font?!

At this point, we realized our vision has shifted since Friday evening and our name is no longer representative of the business itself. Brainstorming is not ideal so late in the game… panic and creativity are not the best of friends! A catchy name and concise tagline define and wraps up your business into a pleasant, unintimidating package. Luckily, a challenge for the most fantastically terrible pun for a name dramatically eased the tension… Out of the madness came a moment of clarity: our (child-friendly) name was born!

T-1 hour
The presentation space was reserved and all ours. We walked through the presentation a few times and gave each other some helpful tips. Nerves kicked in!

T-2 minutes!

Allison Baum, co-organizer and managing director of Fresco Capitol, reminded us of the goodies up for grabs and the first few presentations fly by. As we stood the green room patting each other on the back, our name was called….

5 minutes to sell.

Leo proved his presentation skills and achieved just the reaction we wanted… Laughs and nods all around from the audience and judges! Perfect! He was the right man for the job. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t get enough time to talk through the final slide; Marc knew the numbers and coolly and calmly answered the judge’s questions…

We took our seats once again and relaxed somewhat. Just one pitch more, and all that could be done was done. The judges headed out clasping their notes tightly to their chests. The nerves and anticipation in the air were certainly palpable… But even though every team wanted to win, you could also feel the support and mutual respect from everyone in the room.

“You will be judged!” (Chris Geary’s honest words of warning from day one!) The panel returned and took to the stage. Everyone was sitting up straight, eyes forward; ready to hear what the experts had decided…

Staring back at us were the following successful individuals:

Tytus Michalski (managing director, Fresco Capitol)

Irene Chu (partner in KPMG China, Head of High Growth Technology and Innovation Group in Hong Kong)

Crispian Farrow (Learning Technology Advisor and Facilitator)

Justin Harman (Educational Technology consultant)

Irene Chu cleared her throat.

“Good presentation, team work and sound idea. In moving forward, I encourage them to seek further market validation… Third prize goes to…”

US!

I was very, very happy with that and so were the guys. Of course we were in it to win, and I think everyone should be, but the real winners are those who learn. It’s all about what you do next! We walked away with prizes, certificates, newly acquired skills, top tips, and friends.

I’ve since met up with a few people I met that weekend for a coffee catch up, to get some advice or even get involved with their current projects. I’m very excited about their potential as well as the opportunities opening up to me.

Hong Kong’s startup community is a competitive yet welcoming one. Things get done here in Hong Kong. Does that intimidate you or incredibly inspire you?

No, I don’t want to recommend the Startup Weekend to you… I want to challenge you to it! Or go do whatever it is you’re scared of! Like best selling author Karen Salmansohn said, you’re an unfinished work in progress and “one of the good things about life’s challenges: you get to find out that you’re capable of being far more than you ever thought possible.” So, what will it be?

Biography

Joanne works in Human Resources and Communications for a group of schools across Asia and has been living and working in Hong Kong since 2010. Her passion for people, positivity and progression makes her well suited to her role in education and administration. Twitter: @jomariebrent